Trip brings back memories of pronghorn

Updated 1:14 pm, Saturday, September 8, 2012

Pronghorn show their curiousity for the camera. These were photographed near Roswell, N.M.

Pronghorn show their curiousity for the camera. These were photographed near Roswell, N.M.

Photo: Forrest Mims III, For The Express-News

Trip brings back memories of pronghorn

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

U.S. 285 crosses a treeless stretch of New Mexico.

It's so barren that some drivers might become bored while driving along that lonely road.

But the 100-mile section of road between Roswell and Vaughn never bores me, because many years ago I rode it on a bright yellow, 10-speed Peugeot bicycle while leading a group of 16 teens and young adult cyclists from Albuquerque to Padre Island National Seashore.

During a drive along that highway to see the May 20 solar eclipse, I recalled the two huge tarantulas I used to encourage two sleepy riders to leave their sleeping bags one morning and get ready to roll.

The trip also brought back memories of the big rattlesnake I nearly stepped on while checking a possible campsite a hundred yards ahead of the resting bikers.

Anthony Bourdain’s 1 Rule for Finding a Restaurant While TravelingTime

The Man Who Proved That Bullies Can Be StoppedTimeline

Snowflake Hunting Offers Clues to AtmosphereAssociated Press

Study: Americans Exercise More, But Are More ObeseVeuer

I broke off eight of that snake's rattles as its tail slid down the hole.

My intent was to convince the riders we should not camp there, but they didn't believe me when I showed them the rattles and told them how I had to retreat to the pavement when the angry snake quickly re-emerged from the hole.

Many other memories came back as we drove, and the best of all was suggested by several clusters of pronghorn we saw along the highway.

Pronghorn are much easier to see from a bicycle than from a speeding car.

During the bike trip we encountered a family of pronghorn while coasting down a 90-foot-high rise a mile north of the one-building village called Ramon, 35 miles south of Vaughn.

We were rolling around 40 mph down that hill. But that wasn't nearly fast enough to keep up with those speedy pronghorn, which left us in their dust.

Suddenly our lead rider spooked an immature pronghorn on the highway side of the fence. That youngster easily outran us for at least 200 yards until it found an opening under the fence and rejoined its buddies.

Pronghorn are the fastest land animals in the Western Hemisphere and are second only to Africa's cheetah.

John Byers, a biologist at the University of Idaho, has studied pronghorn for decades. In his book "Built for Speed: A Year in the Life of Pronghorn," Byers reports they can run as fast as 62 mph and can lope along at 45 mph for miles. During the eclipse trip, we stopped to photograph a cluster of four pronghorn north of Roswell on U.S. 285. They seemed as curious about us and the camera as we were about them.